Debate on the Address
	 — 
	[First Day]

Tony Blair: Surely, the whole point is that we are allowing the tenants themselves to choose. Some of them have chosen to make the changes because they think that they will receive a better service.
	As for child care, there will be a duty on local authorities to provide extended child chare between 8 am and 6 pm for children aged three to 14. Sure Start will be expanded. Let us remember that, when we came to office, child benefit had been frozen, there was no working families tax credit, maternity pay was £55 a week and paid maternity leave was only 14 weeks. Now, child benefit is up by 25 per cent. in real terms, the child tax credit benefits millions of families in this country and maternity pay is more than double what it was. Maternity leave is 26 weeks, it will be increased to nine months and, in time, to one year. That is a Labour Government delivering for the people of this country.
	There is, however, a need to make further reforms to our welfare system. A total of 1.2 million people have been helped through the new deal, including lone parents, young people and disabled people. I believe that the new deal has worked well for the people of this country. I remember that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley and I were first campaigning, people used to talk about skivvy schemes. They used to talk about young people being taken off the dole, given a programme for a short period and then being put back on the dole. No one describes the new deal like that, and I urge both Opposition parties to drop their rejection of it. It is a good programme delivering real opportunities to people who need them, and it should have received our wholehearted support in the House.
	Reform of the public services and the welfare state is one theme of the Queen's Speech. Another focus is on continuing to cut crime, the fear of crime and, in particular, antisocial behaviour. Antisocial behaviour measures have been built up over several years and, in many cases, work well. I remind the House that there have been over 90,000 fixed penalty notices and 4,000 antisocial behaviour orders. Hundreds of houses used by drug dealers have been shut and millions of pounds of their assets have been seized. There are an extra 13,000 police and 5,000 community support officers. The new legislation will crack down on imitation firearms and target knife crime and binge drinking. It will tighten antisocial behaviour laws and give the police new powers to tackle drug dealing. In addition to the record numbers of police, there will be a further 20,000 community support officers. When we first introduced CSOs, they were a bone of contention in the House and were opposed by many hon. Members. Again, I hope that all parties now accept the contribution that they make and will support them.

Stuart Bell: Yes. I agree with the Chancellor and with the proposition that the hon. Gentleman has put forward. Clearly, if the royal prerogative were passed to Parliament on the question of war and if we pass the royal prerogative to the people on the question of the treaty, it could never go back again. That is a development in our constitution that we should all welcome. The right hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn—Tony Benn—would, as I said, welcome that more than anyone.
	The destiny of the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe is in the hands of United Kingdom citizens. When the referendum comes, they will have an important decision to make. That decision will affect not only this generation, but generations yet unborn. Mr. Speaker earlier urged us to have a careful debate and to be polite among ourselves as we discuss points with care and interest. When it comes to the European debate, we ought to be careful with the facts and to ensure that we have a proper debate that can go out to the country so that the country can make its decision. As the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said, some 58 per cent. of those who voted in the general election voted for parties in favour of a yes vote.
	There have been references to the 1983 election from my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley, from the Leader of the Opposition and from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. We fought that election on a manifesto that called for peace, jobs and freedom. As The Guardian succinctly, if drily, said, that was better than fighting for war, the dole and slavery. If we think about the history of our continent over the past 60 years, however, we can see that we have lived in peace from one end of it to the other, apart from the difficulties in Northern Ireland—I am glad to see the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) in his place—and on the eastern front in Kosovo and such places. We have had peace in Europe, and that is due in no small measure to the fact that the European nation states wished to come together, did come together and have stayed together ever since. We tend to overlook the fact that the continent was riven by war for 1,000 years, and I ask any Member who cannot sleep at night to dip into Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", where he or she will find that for many generations before nation states existed, tribes in Europe were also involved in warfare.

John Redwood: You are very wise, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I willingly accept your ruling.
	The Gracious Speech adopts certain Conservative language on some crucial policies. Naturally, I welcome the Prime Minister's conversion to the idea that choice, quality, differentiation and diversity are important matters for educational improvement. I look forward to seeing how many of his right hon. and hon. Friends he can carry with him in the Lobby if he decides to put those issues to the test. However, one of the big let-downs in British politics in the past few years is Labour's mantra that cash will be allied to reform, but we have not seen proper reform.
	We have seen a massive over-centralisation and a huge increase in targets and bureaucracy. We have seen teachers, nurses and doctors driven mad to distraction by having to fill in forms instead of looking after their charges and by having to deviate from doing what they would like to do—teaching well, or looking after their patients in the best manner—to deal with the priorities imposed by a centralised bureaucracy, sometimes driven by Ministers and sometimes seemingly acting without a great deal of ministerial direction of any kind. Sometimes, if we challenge Ministers, we are told that they will look into things, as though they had absolutely nothing to do with them. Sometimes we think that they may not have anything to do with Ministers: they look very surprised by what the bureaucracy had been doing in their names. On other occasions, they are more honourable and say, "Yes, of course, we as Ministers are responsible", and suggest that they will make some changes.
	I will believe that the Prime Minister is a true convert to the cause of proper reform when I see the moves that I think he needs to make. He needs to strip out many of those central targets and bureaucracy, and he needs to say that popular schools will be able to expand and that parents will have a genuine choice of school and that the resources and the wherewithal will be made available so that that choice is realistic and their children have a good choice of getting into the school that has been chosen. He also needs to stop his party threatening or menacing the grammar schools.
	One of the most disappointing features of the Labour Government over the past eight years has been the decline of social mobility. One would think that Labour—which, like the Conservatives, wants opportunity for people from poor backgrounds—would be a champion of ways in which people could exercise their rights and could achieve greater social mobility. We heard poignant stories at the start of this debate about people who had managed to move upwards from humble beginnings. Many of us on the Opposition Benches did not start with anything, and the way in which we were able to move upwards was often through educational opportunity at a grammar school or, in my case, a direct grant school where I was able to win a free place. That system was abolished by a previous Labour Government and that school is now independent, so people from the background that I came from are no longer able to go to that school and to enjoy the greater opportunity to go on to a good university and make progress. I do not know whether we all regard getting to the House of Commons as making progress, but there are many who still do. I regard it as a great privilege to be in this place, and I am very conscious of the role that education played in enabling me and many others to get here.
	The Prime Minister must be serious about allowing different types of schools and about backing and supporting the schools of excellence that are often the subject of jealous attack from some members of his party. He needs to be serious about stripping away the centralisation and urge to control and intervene that have done so much damage to our schooling and part of our health care under this Government so far.
	I also look forward to seeing how the Prime Minister intends to buttress his policy of harnessing the private sector's role in the provision of better health care. I think that the important thing about the national health service, which brings together many people and has traditionally united the main parties since the post-war settlement, is the principle that all those who need treatment can get it free at the point of use. It is quite wrong to say that they are getting it free, because all of us are paying very dearly for health care. Very often those who receive it have, over the years, paid many times more than the cost of the health care that they finally need.
	I have described the important principle and we have no ideological hang-up about how the pledge is met. Any sensible person would want it to be met in the most efficient way so that people can access care quickly and in the best way so that the outcome of the treatment or care is the best possible. If the Prime Minister is serious about that interpretation—a more Conservative interpretation than his party has traditionally gone in for—I will very willingly support him. I am sure that all my right hon. and hon. Friends feel the same. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that he is not going to carry that reform forward in the way that he claims he will because there will be political difficulties in his party and because I do not think that he can draw himself away from all the targets, bureaucracy and regulation that are the hallmarks of this Government and in which he is so deeply immersed.
	The Government have also, rather late in the day, become a convert to the idea of less regulation. It was some months ago that the Prime Minister boldly announced that for every new regulation that the Government introduced, one would be removed. It was a very crude approach to deregulation, because regulations are not units of account. It would be possible for the Prime Minister to meet his target by introducing a very expensive regulation such as the recent one on the limitation of overtime and by taking out an old-fashioned and cheap one. He could then say that he had met his target and he would at least have stuck to what he said he was going to do. However, in the past few months since he made his statement, I do not find that he has struck off many regulations but that many regulations are still being introduced.
	In the Gracious Speech, we are promised legislation to make it easier to remove unnecessary and undesirable regulations, but in the words that the Government crafted for Her Majesty we are not actually promised real deregulation. It is well beyond the time when we should just be discussing that process or the idea. If the Government are serious about wishing to undo some of the many mistakes that they have made by over-regulating and interfering too much, they need legislation this Session that will remove a sizeable amount of regulation from the statute book.
	There are many examples of regulations that achieve the opposite of what they set out to do, or fail to do anything along the lines of what was intended. The Government must know about that because they have introduced and supervised many such regulations, so I urge them to beef up the Bill and make it a more serious contribution, if they really think that they have learned the lesson from the electorate.
	My view of the electoral mood in the many places that I visited before the general election and during the campaign itself was that people were conscious, as consumers, that when they bought something, they usually got good product information and some sort of after-sales services, and that if things went wrong, they got redress. When it comes to government, however, which is the biggest thing that they buy—they have no choice about that because they must buy it—they find that there is not a proper after-sales services. Measures often do not do what the product information purports to say. There is often little product information of any kind and people find it difficult to get redress.
	That is why many people are heartily sick of all of us and the political theatre. They begin to think that all there is political theatre and that Parliament does not engage with the lack of value, responsiveness and accountability that they find day by day when they discover that they cannot get appointments with their doctors on time, that they cannot get their operations on time, that their children do not get the teaching in schools that they think they deserve, that there is not the discipline in schools that they think is needed, that police do not respond as quickly as they would like to serious crimes in the neighbourhood, or that policemen are not seen on the beat when casual violence or yobbish behaviour is under way. All our constituents witness those failings from time to time, but that does not seem to produce a response here in the elected Parliament that drags the Government to account and gets them to make things work better for the enormous amount spent.
	The constituents of all hon. Members pay on average £4 out of every £10 that they earn in taxation, although they often do not see that happening. For example, if they are lucky enough still to be able to buy petrol for 80p a litre—it is now usually a bit more than that at the pump—60p of that 80p is tax that goes straight to the Government. When people buy a product or service that has VAT on it, 17.5 per cent. goes straight to the Government. People can see obvious deductions from their income due to income tax and large deductions due to council tax because that annual bill makes them aware of how much the Government can take.
	If the Queen's Speech is seriously to help Parliament and the Government to re-engage with the electorate, we must start from the proposition that the public are not getting value, do not think that they are getting value and feel that the Government are not responding to their worries about the way in which services are delivered and money is spent. All of us need to lift our game and show that Parliament can be incisive and cause the Government to provide better and more responsive services because people will otherwise continue to leave the political theatre.

Ian Paisley: I congratulate the hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow), who spoke from the very same place from which I made my maiden speech 35 years ago. She might be not be encouraged to hear that, but she might at least be encouraged to know that this place does not kill us—we can live through it all and enjoy it even as we become older and, perhaps, wiser.
	I am at a disadvantage, in that I cannot enter into the battle of the election that has been fought again in the House today. The Conservative party, the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have all fought the battle again, but I have no one to fight with. The Social Democratic and Labour party Members are not here, nor are the Sinn Fein Members—thank God—and the remaining Ulster Unionist party Member. As a result, I am on my own, as it were, with my hon. Friends.
	I was reminded by one of my constituents that when I spoke in the House the other day I should have mentioned a little song that they sing sometimes in Ulster about bottles—nine green bottles hanging on the wall. It was suggested to me that I should have said that there were nine bottles but they were not hanging, and that they were not green but orange. Perhaps that sums up the matter.
	I was reading Edmund Burke the other day. He was an Irishman who spent his time in this place teaching the English people democracy, so he said. He wrote:
	"That which is morally wrong can never be politically right."
	That is something that we need to consider in this place.
	I come from a province that has been torn asunder by terrorism. I come from a province that lost its democratic structures because this House thought that the way to deal with it was by taking away the democratic structures that it had. They were not perfect. I am sure that many of us think that the structure of this place is not perfect. However, it was the will of the people that put the structures in place. Alas, we have been through momentous years.
	I asked for the figures for the three main years of the previous Parliament, given that some parliamentarians think that all the trouble is over and that the peace movement, as it is called, and progress are absolutely successful. In 2002, we had 350 shootings and 188 bombings. Three incendiary devices exploded and there were 120 incidents of attacks by firearms and explosives. There were 312 paramilitary attacks.
	In 2003, we had 229 shootings and 77 bombings. There were eight incendiaries and there were 156 finds of explosives and firearms. There were 305 paramilitary attacks. In 2004, we had 185 shootings and 64 bombings. There were 21 incendiaries. There were 90 finds of firearms and explosives and there were 228 paramilitary attacks.
	The darkness is still upon us. The murders are still prevalent, as are the killings. I take cognisance of your looks towards me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but we have been told that the Government will work to bring about the conditions that are necessary for the restoration of political institutions in Northern Ireland, and it is to that that I am addressing my remarks.
	It is all very well for the Government to say that they will deal with terrorism, but they need to start with terrorism in their back yard, which is Northern Ireland. It must be dealt with. There is no use telling our people—I want to make this plain to the House—that we will do our best to rejuvenate the so-called agreement that has failed four times: it was set up, it broke down again and it was broken up. We must go down another road, which must be that no terrorist, whether they come from one side or the other, can be in any Government of any part of this United Kingdom. An ultimatum must be given by the Government that the day of terrorism is over and that people cannot shoot their way into Government office. They cannot murder people, rob banks and destroy their country and then demand that, because they have a mandate, they must get into government. The Prime Minister has promised that. I told the Prime Minister privately that I was a Blairite on that matter. I told him that I was a convinced Blairite, and that I was not changing. There are nine Members from Northern Ireland in the House because of it. The people do not want terrorists in the Government of Northern Ireland, and the time has come for the Government to deal with that.
	Today, I talked with an emissary from the American Government, and I have talked to the people representing the south. They, too, must take a stand on that issue. They should unite, then move forward. If people do not want to get on the train of democracy, they will be left behind on the platform. The train of democracy must move forward in Northern Ireland.
	It is not morally right for terrorists to be in the Government of Northern Ireland. I should like the House to get to grips with that issue, and the Government to keep the promise made by the Prime Minister, to which he referred when I questioned him in the previous Parliament. He gave an undertaking, and I should like it to be honoured. I should like the other parties in the House to recognise it and realise its importance. There is not a single Member in the House who would like to have the situation that we have in Northern Ireland in their own constituency. I make a plea to the House—let us get to grips with the issue.

David Marshall: I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your reappointment as Chairman of Ways and Means. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on winning an historic third successive general election. I should like, too, to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Ms Barlow) on an excellent maiden speech, and I hope that she will be with us for many years to come representing the people of the Hove constituency.
	I consider myself privileged to have been elected as the first Member of Parliament for the new Glasgow, East constituency, following the substantial boundary changes that took place in Scotland at this election when we saw our representation reduced from 72 seats to 59. I should like to place on record my appreciation of the people of Glasgow for their support for me over a number of years, because I was first elected to the House in 1979 for the Shettleston constituency, which is no longer a parliamentary constituency. I should also like to thank all the party members and others who worked so tirelessly on behalf of the Labour party and myself in the election campaign.
	During the last eight years, the east end of Glasgow has undergone a renaissance. There have been tremendous improvements in that part of the city, yet one of the most annoying and distressing aspects of all is the fact that the media, or some parts of it, still portray the area in negative terms, which is depressing for local people and unfair to the area. It would be much better if the media were to concentrate on the positive aspects of the east end to encourage its regeneration and to assist Glasgow as a whole.
	No one would deny that there are problems, but the good things overwhelmingly outnumber the bad. A youth organisation that I visited in the greater Easterhouse area, staffed entirely by volunteers, has 500 young people passing through its doors every week. It is sad that so many people engaged in voluntary organisations, who are the salt of the earth, should get kicked in the teeth by negative comments in the media about the area. I am sure that that applies in other cities in the UK.
	As one would expect from a traditional working-class area, the main issues raised with me during the election campaign were bread-and-butter ones: law and order and the national health service, both devolved to the Scottish Parliament; jobs; pensions; tax credits, which are very popular, especially with people on lower incomes; the taxation of low incomes and pensions; the future of the new deal if Labour were to lose the election; and moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia and cloning, which came up at all the hustings meetings and the various other meetings held throughout the campaign. However, the No. 1 concern of people in the east of Glasgow was the economy. People remember only too well what life was like for 18 years under the Tory Government, when the Queen's Speech was something to be afraid of and dreaded.
	By contrast, there is much in today's Gracious Speech that will meet with universal approval. I welcome the proposal to introduce an offence of corporate manslaughter, and I hope that the legislation will not be delayed, as this is a long-overdue measure. Companies and their directors should be held responsible for their actions.
	I welcome legislation to reduce casualties on the roads, but I hope that that will not be merely a breeding programme for more speed cameras. The proliferation of such cameras is one the reasons why public-police relations are deteriorating, which is to be regretted. People lose their licences and their jobs, and they feel aggrieved. I am sorry to have to say that many people feel that the police would be far better engaged chasing burglars and other criminals than harassing motorists.
	I welcome new consumer credit law to provide greater protection for consumers and to create a fairer credit market. There should be a limit on the rate of interest that banks, companies, stores and anyone lending money can charge. Some people need protecting from themselves. It is far too easy for them to get into debt by obtaining credit that they have no hope of ever repaying. We need to take steps to prevent that.
	I welcome measures to give the police and local communities new powers to tackle violence related to knives, guns and alcohol. I regret, however, that no specific mention is made in the Queen's Speech of air guns. Sadly, just before the election campaign started, a terrible tragedy occurred in my constituency when a two-year-old toddler was killed by an air gun pellet. While I appreciate that legislation will not prevent some people from committing crimes, urgent action needs to be taken to tackle the problems caused by the misuse of air guns. I understand that the Home Secretary will consult the Scottish Executive on introducing proposals on this issue later this summer. I hope that that will happen sooner, rather than later.
	On crime, I feel sorry for the police. I give them my full support and they do splendid work, but much of what they do is to some extent negated by the courts, which let down the law-abiding citizens of this country and its police force. If the courts were to make an example of some criminals, particularly those who commit acts of violence, crime would rapidly decrease. I cite an example from 40 or 50 years ago, which some Members may remember. Lord Carmont sentenced a few razor-slashers in Glasgow to 20 years' imprisonment, at a time when 20 years' imprisonment meant precisely that. Overnight, razor-slashing ceased. One way to deal with law and order issues in society is for the courts to take tougher action on criminals.
	I welcome long-term reform to provide sustainable income for those in retirement. In addition, no tax should be levied on small occupational pensions, nor on small pensions for widows. In addition, we should consider reducing the age at which pensioners qualify for a free TV licence from 75 to 70. A TV licence is a substantial part of a pensioner's income, just as it is for people who are unemployed or on low incomes. Whether the TV licence is good value is a separate matter, but many of my constituents struggle to find the money to pay for it.
	I also welcome measures to offer greater support for working families, such as extending maternity benefit and improving child care provision, along with reform of the welfare state in order to reduce poverty and offer greater equality. However, I am concerned about measures to reform the benefit system. Benefit fraud must of course be tackled, but so must tax avoidance and evasion by mega-rich companies and individuals, which must cost the country a lot more than benefit fraud does. Most people on benefits are not there by choice. They do not get rich, and although there might be the odd such case that the media can highlight, it is only "the odd case". The vast majority of people on benefits merely survive. They cannot afford the same lifestyle as that enjoyed by those in employment.
	Many people are genuinely unfit for work, or do not have the necessary skills to find jobs in their area or the resources to move elsewhere. They cannot just get on their bikes and go somewhere else. In some areas, jobs are not available in sufficient numbers, so this issue has to be handled carefully, especially in Scotland, if the approach taken is to command universal support. For example, in my city of Glasgow 100,000 people—one in three of the available work force—is classified as economically inactive, whatever that means. Most of the constituencies in Glasgow—there are now only seven—have higher-than-average levels of unemployment and numbers of pensioners. They have people who are caught in the poverty trap, problems with child poverty, lower-than-average adult male life expectancy—it is substantially lower than in prosperous areas elsewhere in Scotland or in the south of England; indeed, it is lower by as much as 14 to 17 years—and people surviving on benefits.
	There is a crime and a drug problem in Glasgow as, sadly, there is in many of our towns and cities today. But part of Glasgow's problem is its former industrial heritage, which has affected the health of many people such as miners, steel workers and others who worked in heavy industry. Their lungs were badly damaged by dust, and they have had to live on benefits since retiring or being made redundant, which many were; indeed, they never worked again when Mrs. Thatcher was in power.
	Glasgow is Scotland's only metropolitan area and it attracts people to work and play—leisure, as well as work. It does not always attract people to live there, as many do not want to pay the city's council tax, choosing to live on the perimeter estates and commute. When people in Glasgow get a good job, one of the first things that they do is to move outside to somewhere that they perceive, for one reason or another, to be different. Conversely, if people have problems with alcohol or drugs, or their marriages break up, they tend to drift into the city, so we have a continual turn-around, which creates problems in many constituencies and many parts of the city.
	I have said several times in the House that Glasgow alone cannot solve the city's problems, which must be dealt with and resolved. Glasgow used to contain about a quarter of the Scottish population, but the figure is now much lower. I should have liked to hear something in the Queen's Speech about dealing with the problems of cities such as Glasgow. It is not unique, as other cities in the UK have similar problems. What we need is perhaps some special taskforce with a senior Minister in charge—someone who can accelerate the necessary action to combat the problems and work with all the other organisations in the area, such as devolved Administrations, local government departments, and the private, public and voluntary sectors.
	There is a need to speed things up, but it is not just a matter of consultation. The GEAR—Glasgow eastern area renewal—project, which started in 1976 and was wound up by the Conservatives in 1987 when it was only half way through its task, was a classic. Much time was spent in consultation and the writing of reports, but what is needed to tackle the problems of sub-standard housing, crime and litter and to create prosperity for the city is action. I would favour some sort of pilot project that, if successful in a city like Glasgow, could be adopted to tackle problems in other cities.
	I welcome the Scottish Executive's recent decision to overrule the public inquiry and to complete the M74, which I hope will bring thousands of jobs to the city, lead to an improved environment, develop derelict land and divert much of the traffic that currently goes through residential areas on to the new road.
	I continue to have concerns about identity cards and will await the specific proposals with interest. Another of my concerns is the reform of public services. I believe that public services are best carried out by public sector workers themselves. They frequently fail to get appropriate recognition for the job that they do. They do not deserve to be privatised or have their pension scheme altered after years of service. New entrants may have to be treated differently from existing staff, but that is another matter.

Keith Vaz: The figure was 63 per cent.—up on the previous general election—and the postal vote turnout was about 74 per cent., although it is impossible to say how many of those who received postal votes actually voted. Turnout affects us all in our constituencies and we would like as many people to vote as possible. I favour compulsory voting at elections because as turnout would be very high indeed.
	We put forward our mainstream policies, we put forward the record of this Government, and the people returned a Labour Government. I know that it is possible to play with statistics. One might say that the Conservatives won in this or that region or in England, and that the Labour party won in Scotland and so on, but overall we have a Labour Government—a properly and duly elected Labour Government—and those who accept the results of 1979 have to accept the results of 2005.
	I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for leading us to an historic third election victory. I want him to serve a full term as Prime Minister, as he promised to do during the election campaign. It is very important that he fulfils that pledge because his work has not been completed—and judging by the number of Bills in the Queen's Speech the Government's legislative programme is very full indeed.
	I want to make three quick points about three aspects of policy. The first concerns a subject that was mentioned by both the leader of the Liberal Democrats and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), namely, the Government's European policy. I welcome the number of Bills on Europe that are currently before the House. I welcome the fact that the Government are still committed to the enlargement of the European Union. They did not stop with the enlargement on 1 May 2004, which has brought huge benefits to our country. Some of my hon. Friends will remember the concerns expressed by Opposition Front Benchers about the number of eastern Europeans coming to the United Kingdom. They were all supposed to be applying for benefits and unemployment was going to go up. Of course, that has not happened. The arrival of the new members has benefited Britain enormously and contributed greatly to our economy.
	It is right that we should introduce legislation that will allow Romania and Bulgaria to enter the European Union. It is right that the Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, are the champions of enlargement, and are therefore pushing the case for Turkey. I would like us to look again at the block that we put on the entry of Croatia, for the reasons that have been outlined. It is important that we do not put a cap on membership of the European Union. We should ensure that it is as wide as possible, providing our country and Europe with great opportunities.
	If we are to meet the targets of the Lisbon agenda we need to make absolutely certain that we can compete with the United States, and to do that we need the widest possible reform. That is why I hope that when we take over the presidency of the EU on 1 July we will push forward that reform agenda—an agenda that was set out clearly in the joint letter from the Prime Minister and Chancellor Schröder in 2002. They detailed a long list of reforms that they thought were essential for the progress of the European Union. We have not ticked all those boxes, but we have a golden opportunity from 1 July onwards to ensure that that agenda really is part of what we hope to achieve. We simply cannot accept a common agricultural policy that is so out of date that it does not actually benefit the agricultural agendas of this country and other European countries—apart, of course, from the French.
	I look forward to hearing the new Minister for Europe when he addresses the House tomorrow. I understand that he will be opening the foreign affairs debate because the Foreign Secretary will be absent. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has decided that the Minister for Europe should attend Cabinet meetings. I have always felt that it is essential for the Government to give Europe a much higher priority. It is impossible for the British Foreign Secretary to give detailed attention to the European Union agenda. We have had seven Ministers for Europe over the past eight years, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander) will last longer than some of the others. The fact remains that we need to have that expertise at that level to take us through the presidency and beyond.
	I well remember my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) being extremely beastly to me when I was Minister for Europe, chiding me for not visiting the Balkans, despite the fact that as Minister for Europe I, like my predecessors and successors, had almost a third of the world as part of my portfolio. Indeed, when I was first appointed I was asked by the then Foreign Secretary whether I would take on entry clearance in addition to my European portfolio, and I was told by the permanent secretary that to do so would mean that I had to give up Russia.
	It is impossible for a Minister to do his job effectively unless he is given the time and space to do it. I know that the Minister for Europe can only attend Cabinet meetings, but I see no reason why he should not permanently attend Cabinet—perhaps in a kind of Chief Secretary to the Treasury role—thereby enabling two Ministers to represent the Foreign Office. It will stop Select Committees and colleagues being horrible to Ministers by saying that they have not visited this or that country. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock is very keen for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to visit Poland—that was one of his great campaigns. I do not know whether Ministers have managed to do so, but this will enable that work load to be shared.
	On the European constitution referendum, I take a different view from that advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough. If France votes no in its referendum at the end of the month, I do not see why we should have a referendum. If a major country like France rejects the European constitution in a referendum, what is the point of our having a referendum?

Andrew Robathan: I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford—and/or Eirth—(Mr. Evennett) back to the House. We are pleased to see him and congratulate him on his born-again maiden speech. May I also say that I enjoyed the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon), who made important incisive comments?
	On the first day of a new Parliament, it is fitting for all Members to recall who sent them here. I register my thanks to the good people of Blaby for returning me to my fourth Parliament. I hope that it was an expression of trust. It may have reflected the fact that C came before L on the list when it came to deciding whether to vote Conservative or Labour. Nevertheless, I felt that it was an expression of trust and I am grateful to them. I shall serve all people of my constituency, whichever way they voted, or even if they did not vote, to the best of my ability for the next four or five years.
	The election was not a triumph for the Conservatives. We all know that. One must congratulate the Government on being returned to office. I think that it was unwise of the electorate, but the people have, indeed, spoken. However, it was not a triumph for any party. The Government saw their majority savagely reduced. The Conservatives increased their numbers, but we did not win. I think that the Liberal Democrats saw their vote reduced overall. They got a few extra seats, but they did not do particularly well. No one should pretend that it was a great triumph. It was not a great triumph for democracy when the turnout remained so low.
	There is much in the Queen's Speech, with 40-odd Bills, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford said, it is curiously thin for one with so much in it. I shall dwell on a few points that arise from it. First, however, I am struck by the fact that far from relishing victory, we see empty Labour Benches on the first day of the new Parliament. Where are Labour Members? Why are they not here, relishing the fact that they are back in government? We find ourselves in the dire dog days of this Administration. The Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs laughs, but where are her Members? She was a Whip and should have ensured that a few people at least showed an interest in the Parliament to which they have been returned. These are, without a doubt, the Prime Minister's twilight days. He has said that these are his last days, although we do not know whether they will last three and a half years or four, three months or six months.
	It is extraordinary that, whereas we have returned enthusiastic for the fray, Labour Members do not look as though they are keen on joining in. That is partly because, under the present Prime Minister, new Labour has promised so much and achieved so little. That has spread the cynicism that has led to low turnouts, and the dissatisfaction with the system that we all saw in people's reactions on the doorstep.
	We have heard a lot about education. Why, after eight years of a Labour Government and with huge amounts of extra money put into the education system—I do not criticise that—is a higher proportion of children now going into private education than has since the Butler Education Act of 1944? Why are more people than ever before opting for private health care and private operations for which they have to pay themselves rather than through insurance? In the Queen's Speech, we are promised another immigration Bill—is that the fourth or the fifth? Why do we need it? It is because the Government have created a huge mess in the immigration and asylum systems. Famously, the Prime Minister has not got a clue how many failed asylum seekers are in this country.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks and for Bexleyheath and Crayford referred to that part of the Queen's Speech that says that the Government are determined to foster "a culture of respect" in our society. That sounds good—although no one knows what it means—but who destroyed respect? Why is there so little respect in our society now? That is a complex issue and I do not claim to have all the answers. I suspect that many people are responsible, not least the media, but I suggest that there is a connection between deference and respect. What we have now is a culture of rights in which there is no deference, no respect and no responsibilities, as we have heard. Ali G and his "respect" and "gangsta rap", as I believe it is called, is perhaps what many young people think of when one talks of respect. Personally, I respect each individual for his value as a human being—each person is valued in the sight of God and should be valued in society, too, whatever they do. However, it seems to me that the liberal left has reduced respect by denigrating so many institutions in this country. We need only look at the empty Benches opposite to understand that.
	I remember Peter Mandelson, when he was a Cabinet Minister, in that chattering class way laughing about the "chinless wonders" in our armed forces. I do not think that he ever apologised for that. Perhaps he should have. Today on the television, Lord Hattersley was sneering quietly about the fact that we had a state opening of Parliament, because he is a republican. The House of Lords has been reformed, but I am not sure that it is a better place. Grammar schools are denigrated and under attack from the Government. Under the Labour-Liberal coalition, property rights in Scotland have been subjected to astonishing attack, and the right to roam attacks property rights in this country as well. The fault is not entirely on one side, but the problem is one of reducing respect for other people and their property.
	Over the past eight years—in fact, over the past 40 years—we have seen the fostering of the culture of rights. The 10-year-old who tells a police constable who remonstrates with him, "I know my rights—don't you lay a finger on me," is a deeply worrying phenomenon. That culture is backed up by the so-called Human Rights Act 1998. Human rights sound marvellous, but the Act, against which some of us warned eight years ago, has contributed to the lack of respect and the yob culture that all of us are now supposed to turn against. For an example, let us take Travellers. They know their rights, they know about human rights and they know about legal challenges, but in my constituency just before the election they were defecating on the doorsteps of law-abiding citizens.
	So-called modernising also reduces respect. Roy Jenkins might not be the best example I could use, but he was quoted earlier and, all credit to him, he came a long way—from a Welsh mining village, I believe. He delighted in speaking the Queen's English perfectly. Some people took the mickey out of him for so doing. We now have a Prime Minister who speaks with an accent that was never heard when he was at Fettes or at Oxford. This is a dumbing down and a denigration of perhaps what people used to look up to.
	Modernising is in with the new and out with the old, change for its own sake. Consider all the fuddy-duddy old ways that the Government have been kicking. We should respect the history of this country and not apologise for it. What do we apologise for? Should we apologise for the potato famine in the 1840s or the slave trade, or any other such nonsense?
	We should stand up for and support those who are in authority such as head teachers. We should show deference to the position of a head teacher or a police officer, people who are serving society. We should defer to and respect a nurse, a waitress, a road sweeper or a doctor, or even the Prime Minister, because of the positions that these people hold. We may not respect them enormously but we should acknowledge that which they are meant to be doing for us all.
	The ghastly liberal left-leaning media have contributed hugely to the iconoclasm and the lack of respect that I believe has led to many of the problems that we are talking about. We need to foster a culture of respect. The Government have denigrated our institutions when they should have been standing up for them.
	Deference to a position—for example, to a head teacher—is not obsequiousness. Instead, it shows mutual respect. The Government's determination to equalise and dumb down has led to a person who has, for example, got excellent A-levels or a very good degree, discovering that there is no respect from others for his or her achievement. People say, "A-levels are devalued these days", and respect for a degree is devalued as well.
	We should be proud of this country, of its institutions and of its democracy. That brings me on to what was perhaps the most disturbing element of the election campaign from my point of view. I am proud of the House and this mother of parliaments, so called. However, just before the election, Judge Richard Mawrey said that postal voting in this country was worthy of a banana republic. I think that I am quoting him correctly. Indeed, the mother of parliaments was reduced to such a state. He went on to say that the postal voting system was
	"an open invitation to fraud."
	There are so many postal voting forms that they are thrown out like confetti. I have several in my office. I could easily have used them all. Like most Members, I am registered in two places, as is my wife. We could all use them because there is no cross-checking. I do not know whether right hon. and hon. Members realise but if Tipp-Ex is used on a postal vote—cross out one mark and put in another—that will be fine. According to electoral law, one is explaining to the returning officer that that is one's choice. If an envelope is ripped open and then resealed, that is fine. There is nothing in legislation about that, yet that is what has been happening.
	There is no proper identification of postal votes. As I have said, there is no cross-checking. It is not only Members who are registered in two places. Universities and colleges have been registering all their students. Enormous numbers of students have been registered at both home and university. This is a matter of concern. There should be cross-checking.
	Regrettably, most students did not vote rather than voting twice, but that is something else. In Leicester, it was reported on the Jeremy Vine show that there were 450 foreign students in one hostel—it catered for foreign students—who had all been registered for postal votes. Is no one checking this procedure? Some people were sent postal votes who had never applied for them. I know many people who found themselves in that position. Those who did want a postal vote because they were going on holiday or who lived overseas—I received many letters from people in such circumstances, and I am sure that it is the experience of other hon. Members—never received such a vote in time. I have received letters from people in Spain, telling me that they had applied for a postal vote. They live in the country for six months each year but the form never arrived. They told me that they would have voted for me, which was nice, but they could not do so.
	There have been endless complaints. People went on holiday expecting to receive their postal vote more than a week in advance, but did not. I understand that postal votes, according to legislation, have to be out only on the day before the election. That is ridiculous, and it negates the purpose of postal voting for overseas voters or people going on holiday. The system is hopeless. It should be reformed from top to bottom, and I hope that the Bill we have been promised will do so.
	I am ashamed on behalf of my country of the postal voting fiasco, and the Government should be ashamed of themselves for introducing it. It has destroyed the integrity of our electoral system, as there is no trust in, or respect for, a system that was changed in the name of so-called modernisation. The change was introduced, hon. Members may recall, to increase participation. I thought then, and I still think, that it was introduced to increase participation by Labour voters, as the Government were worried that they might stay at home in future. On 5 April, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), who was previously the Minister for Local and Regional Government but has now been reduced to serving on the Back Benches, said in the House that individual registration in Northern Ireland had reduced the number of people on the electoral roll, which was a bad thing. I am not the only person who knows that the "vote early, vote often" mantra came from Ireland. Of course registration went down, because many people were wrongly on the electoral register in Northern Ireland.
	The judge in the Birmingham fraud case said that the Government were guilty
	"not simply of complacency but of denial".
	We must restore the integrity of the register and the voting system as a first step towards restoring trust in, and respect for, our political system. We should end postal voting on demand, and should have individual registration, as recommended by the Electoral Commission. We should have proper identity checks, perhaps at polling stations, and there should be cross-checking to discover whether people are registered in two places. We must limit postal votes, which should be sent out well in advance so that people can vote if they have registered.
	Turning to service voting, on 2 February, in response to my question, the Prime Minister told me that all service voters would definitely have the opportunity to vote. When I was in Iraq at the end of January, however, a straw poll revealed that eight out of 10 soldiers were not registered. That is an unscientific poll, but a large number of service voters were not registered at all. One of them told me, "I didn't think that we were allowed to vote." The Prime Minister promised that everyone would have a form to register as a service voter before 11 March, the cut-off date for registration for an election on 5 May. Those forms never arrived. They may have arrived in some places, but I could give the details of many establishments where they did not do so.
	What chance did someone in Iraq, Afghanistan or on the high seas who had registered as a service voter and received a postal vote have of returning that vote if they received it two or three days before the election? Typically, the forces' Iraq post takes 10 days in either direction, so there was not any chance of returning those votes. That, too, shames the Government, who have effectively disenfranchised the service personnel whom they have sent into dangerous parts of the world to do their bidding and serve the country.I was in the Army for 15 years, but I only recall registering once—I probably changed my details once or twice—as I had a proxy. Typically, a spouse, parent or, in my case, a brother acted as a proxy in elections. I hope that my brother always voted the right way—to a certain extent, one must trust people.
	In the service voting fiasco, the Government deliberately dragged their feet. Ivor Caplin, who was a defence Minister in the last Parliament, said on 20 January that
	"the situation is not nearly as bad as it seems"—[Official Report, 20 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 1002.]
	He was right—it was much worse. I should like the Government to instigate a proper investigation to find out how many service personnel had the opportunity to vote on the Government's shambolic policies. I have already written to Sam Younger of the Electoral Commission asking him to do so. I wish he would spend more time investigating such subjects instead of sending us lots of glossy brochures that do not say very much.
	I turn briefly to another couple of points. On Northern Ireland, we heard a rather good speech from the leader of the Democratic Unionist party. The Government's well-intentioned Belfast agreement, which many of us feared was built on sand, has produced exactly the opposite result to that which the Government hoped for. It has polarised opinion, so that the Democratic Unionists, who used to be considered extremists, are now the authentic voice of the Unionist or Protestant side—whichever one wishes to call it. I have no problem with the Democratic Unionists, but I have a worry that the people who were once referred to as extremists now romp back with nine seats to the one that the official Unionists got. At the same time Sinn Fein, despite the Northern bank robbery, the McCartney murder and everything else, increased its representation by one seat.
	The reason for those results goes back to the matter of respect and trust. The Unionist community voted for the Belfast agreement because the Prime Minister promised that there was no place in government for those who had not given up violence for good. That message stands on its own.
	Finally, I shall deal with the single farm payment. The environment and agriculture were mentioned only briefly in the Queen's Speech. I am a farmer and I have just had to fill in the forms for the single farm payment. Sadly, no Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is present. I challenge any DEFRA Minister to fill in those forms. I meet many of my farming colleagues in my constituency and get on very well with them. They have told me that they believe the forms were introduced to drive decent old family farmers—not necessarily the best educated—out of business and get them to leave farming. Perhaps one or two other hon. Members have filled in the forms. I challenge anyone to fill them in and not to think, "My God, what is all this about?" They are so complex that all DEFRA Ministers should have to sit down and fill them in before they talk about farming.
	In conclusion, when the Government came in eight years ago, they said that things could only get better. If I am honest—I see a Whip in the front row—I, like many people of Conservative persuasion throughout the country, shared a little of the optimism surrounding the brave new Government, the young Prime Minister and the dynamic nonsense. Do we now believe that Britain is a much better place? Do we feel more at ease with ourselves?
	Some things are certainly better. I was ambivalent at the time, but I applaud the Chancellor's decision eight years ago to give independence to the Bank of England. Whatever we say, there are improvements in hospitals. In many cases waiting times are down, but so they damn well should be, with the amount of money that is being spent on such things. Generally, do we feel that things are that much better? I believe that there is a sense of hugely raised expectations that have been dashed. That has led to cynicism, a lack of trust in politicians and a lack of respect for politicians and for our democratic institutions like Parliament, which should hold out hope and optimism for the people of the United Kingdom. The Government are failing in that and are failing the people of the country whom we are all here to serve, when there is not enough hope for the future, as we would all wish.

David Amess: I am greatly honoured to have obtained the first Adjournment debate of the new parliamentary Session, and I know that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) and my constituents of Southend, West are very pleased that I have had this opportunity to debate a number of issues with the Minister.
	I congratulate the Minister on his well-deserved promotion. I always thought he did a splendid job when he replied to the Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and summer Adjournment debates, always conscientiously following up the different points that we had raised. I hope that if I continue to flatter him more, I will find that I get the right answers to the points that I wish to raise in this short debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East and I wanted to fight the general election campaign on national issues, but the reality was that for four weeks we fought it on local issues, and we fought it on the issue of the 20,000 people who were left off the national census. But I was shocked when, halfway through the general election campaign, the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided to make that matter a key point of the election.
	On 21 April, I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman about what he said during one of his briefings:
	"I understand that you have suggested today that I have committed my party to a further £14 million of spending in Southend. That is absolute nonsense. I am sure that you would not want to make a untruthful statement about what I have said and I can only assume that you have been badly briefed.
	When the National Census was conducted in Southend, 20,000 people were left off it, with disastrous consequences. We have lost a huge amount of funding. I am meeting the National Office of Statistics on Monday 9th May and I will be presenting them with evidence that they have made a mistake. That matter has nothing whatsoever to do with the Conservative Party's spending plans.
	I trust now that you will take action to correct the untruthful press release which you have issued apparently about myself."
	I have not yet received the apology—perhaps it has been delayed in the post—but now that this will be reported in Hansard, I am sure that the Chancellor will wish to correct the statement that he made during the general election campaign.
	The crux of the matter for the Minister is that, as a result of national census, Southend has received funding for 20,000 fewer people than it should have. It is absolutely crazy for the Office for National Statistics to claim that the Southend's population has shrunk by 20,000 since 1990, when every other element of the Government has said exactly the opposite in parliamentary responses. In other words—I shall come to the meeting on 9 May in a minute—according to the ONS, everyone is wrong, except it. That is simply not the case, and I shall tell the Minister about the result of the funding crisis in Southend.
	The borough council originally expected to increase its council tax by 9 per cent. Thus the residents of Southend would have had to endure council tax increases in excess of 15 per cent. over two years. Obviously, that would have made things very difficult for many local residents. Given the original £5 million-worth of cuts, the council would have had to make savings of £12 million over two years. The £5 million cuts in social services have included 12 redundancies; efficiency restructuring; the withdrawal of free school transport to voluntary-aided schools, with the exception of disadvantaged children; a reduction in school uniform grants to children from disadvantaged families; the closure of the Palace theatre, community centres and a mobile library; reductions in the park ranger services and grounds maintenance; the withdrawal of all bus route subsidies; and a 3 per cent. increase in charges for Southend borough council services. Obviously, that has not been very popular with local residents, so my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East and I have done pretty well over the past four weeks to survive the sort of criticism that we have received on the doorstep as a result of the financial crisis. I certainly do not blame the Minister for that, but I simply ask him to listen to what I have got to say tonight and to give my hon. Friend and me some assistance.
	The Minister's predecessor warned Southend that it could be capped, so we obviously found ourselves with an increase in council tax that would not lead to rate capping. In spite of that, I have been advised today by the treasury office in Southend that we have still had to take £800,000 from reserves and an additional £70,000 in rent income from beach huts. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) is here, so I must be careful, especially as I lived there for three years, but my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East and I believe that Southend is the finest seaside resort along the Thames estuary. Some £20,000 less has had to be paid to the Essex police authority for police community support officers, and £1.1 million less provided for the cost—
	It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Cawsey.]